Lars Granoe, vice president of sales for URC, revealed today that the company has retained a legal firm that specializes in intellectual property law to pursue rogue internet resellers who are both unauthorized and have misappropriated URC’s copyrighted artwork, product descriptions, photographic images and other proprietary material. Said dealers are being identified and being sent Cease and Desist demand letters penned by the attorneys.

Reports of unauthorized merchants selling, giving away or otherwise distributing URC’s copyrighted proprietary software, including programming editors, are similarly being pursued. The company pledges to prosecute every instance of illegal software piracy.

URC uses product serial numbers to determine whether or not items returned under warranty were purchased from an Authorized Dealer. Products that have had the serial numbers removed, products purchased secondhand and products purchased from places other than Authorized Dealers are not eligible for warranty coverage through URC. If defective, they should be returned to the place of purchase.

Furthermore, URC does not provide programming software to consumers. Consumers are firmly warned that IF ANY UNAUTHORIZED DEALER CLAIMS THAT THEY CAN SUPPLY URC PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE, IT IS MOST LIKELY STOLEN.

URC dealers – please feel free to share this with your clients.

Is the software sharing/giving prohibition a new policy?
I know we had this discussion many, many times, but I was always under the impression that giving your client copy of editing program was kosher.

Not according to this notice I just got from URC Newsletter, see second to last paragraph.

BTW, this will not affect me in anyway as I have never been asked to share/give software with/to a client. 

It's URC so trying to guess what their policy is today versus yesterday is not possible.

It says that dealers may hand it out, meaning authorized dealers. Unauthorized dealers is the issue, and that is what the warning is about.

That's not how it reads to me.
Where do you see in writing that it states that authorized dealers may distribute or share the software?

It doesn't really. Just reading between the lines which unfortunately you have to with URC. It NEEDS to be a crystal clear policy one way or the other.

That's what I say.
Why can't they put something simple like Russound side of the box warranty warning?

I saw a big red sticker on a 780 I programmed today that said this remote is designed to be programmed by a professional installer

Like this????

What about this?

[Link: ebay.com]

This was a listing by someone for CCP software only for sale.

My local dealer told me the other day that he used to distribute the software DVDs, but was told at some point that he would no longer be an authorized dealer if he distributed it anymore.

I understand the purpose of their policy, but at the same time URC has been exceptionally slow to adapt to new technology. I am baffled that just recently they created a solution where an installer could connect to a customers devices over the internet to make updates. The sad part is it is only for small fraction of their line.

[Link: universalremote.com]

The biggest annoyance with having a device that needs to be programmed by a specialist is not the cost, but the inconvenience. If I could call or email my installer that I got a new cable box with the model number and he could connect in minutes and have the new device added and all the activities updated I would be happy to pay a service fee and have a device that is maintained by someone else.

There is a company on the internet that sells hearing aids and they provide a usb device to connect to the hearing aid and an audiologist can work with the
customer online to make adjustments to their hearing aids right at home, no trip to the hearing specialist. As someone who has hearing aids I can tell you that the level interaction with the end user is much higher than what would be required to understand a customers needs when programming a remote.

The Philips Pronto Professional line, the editor ProntoEdit Professional (PEP) offers a feature where you can create what they call a "PackAndGo" file, a stand-alone executable (*.exe) version of a given configuration file which when run will download the configuration file to the remote. That's all it does. Takes the editor completely out of the loop. The installer simply provides the executable file to the customer. I generally just post the file to my FTP and provide the customer a download link. Customer downloads the file, connects their remote to the computer and runs the file. Done deal. Use this feature all the time. Considering the fact that URC doesn't make their software openly available for anyone to download I'm quite surprised they don't offer a similar feature as without such a feature the only options for the "AV professional" when needing to update a customers remote is to either pay them a house call or have the editor software installed on their computer, so that any needed update can be done so remotely.